Late 1970s and early 1980s United States Los Angeles Michael Azerrad states that "[by] 1979 the original punk scene [in Southern California] had almost completely died out" and was replaced by punk music boiled down to its essence, but with faster tempos, which became known as "hardcore". Steven Blush states that the first hardcore record to come out of the West Coast was
Out of Vogue by the Santa Ana band
Middle Class. The band pioneered a shouted, fast version of punk rock which would shape the hardcore sound that would soon emerge. In terms of impact upon the hardcore scene, Black Flag has been deemed the most influential group. Azerrad calls Black Flag the "godfathers" of hardcore punk and states that even "...more than the flagship band of American hardcore", they were "...required listening for anyone who was interested in underground music." Blush states that Black Flag were to hardcore what the
Sex Pistols and
Ramones were to punk. Formed in
Hermosa Beach, California by
guitarist and primary songwriter
Greg Ginn, they played their first show in December 1977. Originally called Panic, they changed their name to Black Flag in 1978. In 2002, during an interview with
Nardwuar,
Dead Kennedys singer
Jello Biafra was asked what he believed to be the first hardcore record, he remarked: "Sound Of Imker
Train of Doomsday single in the late '60s in Holland. The only true '60s hardcore record I know." By 1979, Black Flag were joined by another
South Bay hardcore band, the
Minutemen, with whom they shared a practice space until both bands were evicted, as well as the
Circle Jerks (which featured Black Flag's original singer,
Keith Morris). From
Hollywood, two other bands playing hardcore punk,
Fear and the
Germs, were featured with Black Flag and the Circle Jerks in
Penelope Spheeris' 1981 documentary
The Decline of Western Civilization. By the time the film was released, other hardcore bands from
Los Angeles County were also making a name for themselves including
Bad Religion,
Descendents,
Red Kross,
Rhino 39,
Suicidal Tendencies,
Wasted Youth,
Youth Brigade, and
Youth Gone Mad. Neighboring
Orange County had
the Adolescents,
Agent Orange,
China White,
Social Distortion,
Shattered Faith,
T.S.O.L., and
Uniform Choice, while north of Los Angeles, around
Oxnard, California, a hardcore scene known as "nardcore" developed with bands like
Agression,
Ill Repute,
Dr. Know, and
Rich Kids on LSD., formerly the bassist for the
Minutemen in a 2013 show Whilst popular traditional punk bands such as
the Clash, Ramones, and Sex Pistols were signed to major record labels, the hardcore punk bands were generally not. Black Flag, however, was briefly signed to
MCA subsidiary Unicorn Records but were dropped because an executive considered their music to be "anti-parent". Instead of trying to be courted by the major labels, hardcore bands started their own
independent record labels and distributed their records themselves. Ginn started
SST Records, which released Black Flag's debut EP
Nervous Breakdown in 1979. SST went on to release a number of albums by other hardcore artists, and was described by Azerrad as "easily the most influential and popular underground indie of the Eighties."
Epitaph Records (started by
Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion),
New Alliance Records (started by the Minutemen's
D. Boon and
Mike Watt), as well as fan-run labels like
Frontier Records and
Slash Records. Bands also funded and organized their own tours. Black Flag's tours in 1980 and 1981 brought them in contact with developing hardcore scenes in many parts of North America, and blazed trails that were followed by other touring bands. Concerts in the early Los Angeles hardcore scene increasingly became sites of violent battles between police and concertgoers. Another source of violence in L.A. was tension created by what one writer calls the invasion of "antagonistic suburban
poseurs" into hardcore venues. Violence at hardcore concerts was portrayed in episodes of the popular television shows
CHiPs and
Quincy, M.E.. In the pre-Internet era, fanzines, commonly called
zines, enabled hardcore scene members to learn about bands, clubs, and record labels. Zines typically included reviews of shows and records, interviews with bands, letters, ads for records and labels, and were DIY products, "proudly amateur, usually handmade. A zine called
We Got Power described the Los Angeles scene from 1981 to 1984, and it included show reviews and band interviews with groups including D.O.A., the Misfits, Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies and the Circle Jerks.
San Francisco performing with the
Dead Kennedys Shortly after Black Flag debuted in Los Angeles,
Dead Kennedys were formed in San Francisco. While the band's early releases were played in a style closer to traditional punk rock,
In God We Trust, Inc. (1981) marked a shift into hardcore. Similar to Black Flag and Youth Brigade, Dead Kennedys released their albums on their own label, which in DK's case was
Alternative Tentacles. The scene was helped in particular by the San Francisco club
Mabuhay Gardens, whose promoter,
Dirk Dirksen, became known as "The Pope of Punk". Another important local institution was
Tim Yohannan's
Maximumrocknroll, which started as a radio show in 1977, but branched out into a
fanzine in 1982. While not as large as the scene in Los Angeles, the hardcore scene of the early 1980s included a number of noteworthy bands originating from the
San Francisco Bay Area, including
Bl'ast,
Crucifix,
the Faction,
Fang,
Flipper, and
Whipping Boy. Additionally, during this time, seminal
Texas-based bands
Dirty Rotten Imbeciles,
the Dicks,
MDC,
Rhythm Pigs, and
Verbal Abuse all relocated to San Francisco. Further out of the Bay Area,
Sacramento's
Tales of Terror were cited by many, including
Mark Arm, as a key inspiration for the
grunge movement.
Washington, D.C. The first hardcore punk band to form on the East Coast of the United States was Washington, D.C.'s
Bad Brains. Initially formed in 1977 as a jazz fusion ensemble called Mind Power, and consisting of all
African-American members, their early foray into hardcore featured some of the fastest tempos in
rock music. The band released its debut single, "
Pay to Cum", in 1980, and were influential in establishing the D.C. hardcore scene. Hardcore historian Steven Blush calls the single the first East Coast hardcore record.
Ian MacKaye and
Jeff Nelson, influenced by
Bad Brains, formed the band
Teen Idles in 1979. The group broke up in 1980, and MacKaye and Nelson went on to form
Minor Threat, a band which, apart from
Bad Brains, has arguably had the biggest influence on the hardcore punk genre, and whose contributions to the music, ethics, aesthetic, and ethos are still widely acknowledged by hardcore bands of the 2020s. The band used faster rhythms and more aggressive, less melodic riffs than was common at the time. Minor Threat popularized the
straight edge movement with its song "
Straight Edge", which spoke out against alcohol, drugs and promiscuity. MacKaye and Nelson ran their own record label,
Dischord Records, which released records by D.C. hardcore bands, including
the Faith,
Iron Cross,
Scream,
State of Alert,
Government Issue,
Void, and D.C.'s
Youth Brigade. The
Flex Your Head compilation was a seminal document of the early 1980s D.C. hardcore scene. The record label was run out of the Dischord House, a Washington, D.C.,
punk house.
Henry Rollins, who would come to prominence as the lead singer of the California-based Black Flag, as well as his own later
Rollins Band, grew up in Washington, D.C., singing for the State of Alert, and was influenced by the music of Bad Brains and the bands of his childhood friend Ian MacKaye. The tradition of holding all-ages shows at small DIY spaces, has roots in the early Washington, D.C., straight edge movement. It emerged from the idea that people of all ages should have access to music, regardless of if they're old enough to drink alcohol.
Boston Seminal Boston-area hardcore bands included
the F.U.'s,
the Freeze,
Gang Green,
Jerry's Kids,
Siege,
DYS,
Negative FX, and
SS Decontrol. Members of the latter three bands were influenced by D.C.'s
straight edge scene, and were part of "the Boston Crew", a mostly straight edge group of friends known to physically fight people who used alcohol or drugs. Members of the Boston Crew would later go on to form the band
Slapshot, and drew the artwork for the DYS album
Brotherhood. In 1982,
Modern Method Records released
This Is Boston, Not L.A., a compilation album of the Boston hardcore scene. In addition to Modern Method was
Taang! Records, who released material by a number of the aforementioned Boston hardcore bands. Further outside of Boston were
Western Massachusetts bands
Deep Wound (which featured future
Dinosaur Jr. members
J Mascis and
Lou Barlow) and the
Outpatients, both of whom would come to Boston to play shows. From nearby
Manchester, New Hampshire, was
G.G. Allin, a solo singer who, contrary to straight edge, used large amounts of drugs and alcohol, eventually dying of a heroin overdose. Allin's stage show included defecating on stage and then throwing his feces at the audience.
New York in New York CityThe
New York City hardcore scene emerged in 1981 when
Bad Brains moved to the city from
Washington, D.C. Starting in 1981, there was an influx of new hardcore bands in the city including
Agnostic Front,
Beastie Boys,
Cro-Mags, Cause for Alarm,
the Mob,
Murphy's Law,
Reagan Youth, and
Warzone. A number of other bands associated with New York hardcore scene came from
New Jersey, including the
Misfits,
Adrenalin OD and
Hogan's Heroes. Steven Blush calls the Misfits "crucial to the rise of hardcore." New York hardcore had more emphasis on rhythm, in part due to the use of
palm-muted guitar chords, an approach called the NY hardcore "chug". performing Early radio support in New York's surrounding
Tri-State area came from Pat Duncan, who had hosted live punk and hardcore bands weekly on
WFMU since 1979.
Bridgeport, Connecticut's
WPKN had a radio show featuring hardcore called Capital Radio, hosted by Brad Morrison, beginning in February 1979 and continuing weekly until late 1983. In
New York City, Tim Sommer hosted
Noise The Show on
WNYU. By 1984, the
Ramones, one of the original New York punk bands, were experimenting with hardcore, with two songs, "Wart Hog" and "Endless Vacation" on their album
Too Tough To Die.
Other American regions Minneapolis hardcore consisted of bands such as
Hüsker Dü and
the Replacements, while
Chicago had
Articles of Faith,
Big Black and
Naked Raygun. The
Detroit area was home to
Crucifucks,
Degenerates,
the Meatmen,
Negative Approach,
Spite and
Violent Apathy. From
Ohio was
Maumee's
Necros and
Dayton's
Toxic Reasons. The zine
Touch and Go covered this
Midwest hardcore scene from 1979 to 1983. Other prominent hardcore bands from this time that came from areas without large scenes include
Raleigh, North Carolina's
Corrosion of Conformity.
Canada D.O.A. formed in
Vancouver, British Columbia in 1978 and were one of the first bands to refer to its style as "hardcore", with the release of their album ''
Hardcore '81''. Other early hardcore bands from British Columbia included
Dayglo Abortions who formed in 1979, the
Subhumans and
the Skulls.
Nomeansno is a hardcore band originally from
Victoria, British Columbia, and now located in
Vancouver.
SNFU formed in
Edmonton in 1981 and also later relocated to
Vancouver.
Bunchofuckingoofs, from the
Kensington Market neighbourhood of
Toronto,
Ontario, formed in November 1983 as a response to "a local war with
glue huffing Nazi skinheads". In
Montreal,
The Asexuals helped fertilize a scene that became a necessary tour stop for punk and hardcore bands headed to the Northeast.
United Kingdom and
D-beat band
Antisect playing in Brighton in 1985 In the
United Kingdom, a fertile hardcore scene took root early on. Referred to under a number of names including "U.K. Hardcore", "
UK 82", "second wave punk", "real punk", and "No Future punk", it took the previous punk sound and added the incessant, heavy drumbeats and heavily distorted guitar sound of
new wave of British heavy metal bands, especially
Motörhead. Formed in 1977 in
Stoke-on-Trent,
Discharge played a large role in influencing other European hardcore bands. AllMusic calls the band's sound a "high-speed noise overload" characterized by "ferocious noise blasts." Their style of hardcore punk was coined as
D-beat, a term referring to a distinctive drum beat that a number of 1980s imitators of Discharge are associated with. Another UK band,
the Varukers, were one of the original D-beat bands, Scottish band
the Exploited were also influential, with the term "UK 82" (used to refer to UK hardcore in the early 1980s) being taken from one of their songs. They contrasted with early American hardcore bands by placing an emphasis on appearance. Frontman Walter "Wattie" Buchan had a giant red
mohawk and the band continued to wear
swastikas, an approach influenced by the wearing of this symbol by 1970s punks such as
Sid Vicious. Because of this, the Exploited were labeled by others in the scene as "cartoon punks". Other influential UK hardcore bands from this period included
GBH,
Anti-Establishment,
Antisect,
Broken Bones,
Chaos UK,
Conflict,
Dogsflesh,
English Dogs, and
grindcore innovators
Napalm Death.
Other countries There was an Italian hardcore punk scene in the 1980s that included groups like
Wretched,
Raw Power, and
Negazione. Sweden developed several influential hardcore bands, including
Anti Cimex,
Disfear, and
Mob 47. Finland produced some influential hardcore bands, including
Terveet Kädet, one of the first hardcore groups to emerge in the country. In Eastern Europe, notable hardcore bands included Hungary's
Galloping Coroners from 1975, Yugoslavia's 1980s-era
Niet from Ljubljana,
Patareni from Zagreb and
KBO! from Kragujevac. A
Japanese hardcore scene arose to protest the social and economic changes sweeping the country in the late 1970s and during the 1980s. The band
SS is regarded as the first, forming in 1977. Bands such as
the Stalin and
GISM soon followed, both forming in 1980. Other notable Japanese hardcore bands include
Balzac,
Bomb Factory,
Disclose (a D-beat band),
Garlic Boys,
Gauze,
SOB, and
the Star Club.
Mid–to–late 1980s playing in
Denver in 1986 The mid-1980s were a time of transition for the hardcore scene, with a number of influential bands from earlier in the decade changing their sound or breaking up. For instance, Black Flag's 1984 album
My War, which coincided with the band members growing their hair long, were criticized for having "gone
heavy metal". The album's second side was called a road map for
sludge metal, as well as being influenced by
doom metal bands. Black Flag's eventual breakup in 1986 would coincide with the breakup of one of the other most influential hardcore bands, the
Dead Kennedys. By 1985, Boston bands SS Decontrol and DYS became metal bands, while the F.U.'s did the same, but changed their name to "Straw Dogs". By the end of the year, both SSD and DYS had broken up. Other bands in the mid-'80s that went from being strictly hardcore to adding more metal riffs developed an even heavier sound, with Corrosion of Conformity, Cro-Mags and D.R.I., becoming known as
crossover thrash bands. Bands like Cro-Mags looked to early Bad Brains songs such as
Supertouch/Shitfit as inspiration for heavy breakdowns in hardcore punk music. Bad Religion briefly broke up in 1984, after making the
progressive rock album
Into the Unknown. They returned to their roots on the 1985
Back to the Known EP, and then began their embrace of more melodic straightforward punk rock, starting with 1988's
Suffer. In 1986, Los Angeles's
Youth Brigade changed their name to The Brigade, and changed their sound to a style that
The Los Angeles Times compared to mainstream bands like
U2,
R.E.M., and
Big Country. They broke up the following year. Bands such as
Minutemen,
Meat Puppets,
Hüsker Dü and
the Replacements, changed their style, becoming
alternative rock. Around the same time, a social movement within the influential hardcore punk scene of Washington, D.C., occurred during the summer of 1985, dubbed
Revolution Summer. The movement challenged the initial wave of hardcore music, the attitudes of fans and bands before them and also the image mainstream media portrayed of punks. The bands that spawned out of Revolution Summer often took a stand against violence, especially at shows in the form of slam dancing, as well as standing up against the sexism of the scene. Bands associated with the movement, such as
Rites of Spring,
Embrace, and
Dag Nasty, are notable for having inspired the emotional hardcore and the original
emo genre of the late 1980s and 1990s. The subsequent
post-hardcore music genre, spearheaded by bands like
Fugazi, is an evolution of hardcore which was created by participants of the Revolution Summer movement. T.S.O.L., who had already embraced
goth rock, became a
hard rock band with 1986's
Revenge, being compared to
Poison and
Faster Pussycat, and touring with
Guns N' Roses.
Red Kross's second album, 1987's
Neurotica, was described as a blend of
pop rock and
art rock. The
Beastie Boys gained fame by playing
hip-hop, and
Bad Brains incorporated more
reggae into their music, such as in their 1989 album
Quickness. at a 2010 show Starting in 1986, the
youth crew movement, became prominent in New York hardcore. Inspired by early hardcore bands such as 7 Seconds, Minor Threat and SSD, whose members were all straight edge and lyrical concerns included brotherhood and community values, youth crew was a reaction against the prevailing metal influence in hardcore at the time. The movement was based around
Youth of Today, and fleshed out by bands signed to Youth of Today vocalist
Ray Cappo's record label
Revelation Records, including
Gorilla Biscuits,
Bold and Side by Side. Following the release of their second album
Break Down the Walls (1986), Youth of Today toured extensively across the United States and internationally, leading to youth crew ideals spreading and the formation of many subsequent bands. Youth crew took a particular hold in Southern California, where
Chain of Strength became one of the style's premier bands. In the late 1980s, a more militant subculture of
straight edge called
hardline emerged through members of the
anarcho punk scene and embraced
veganism and
radical environmentalism.
Vegan Reich began as a crew of
Animal Liberationists before becoming a band in order to promote their views in 1986; however, the group split from the wider
U.S. anarchist movement in 1988 due to backlash from the community for their anti-
carnist views. Vegan Reich vocalist Sean Muttaqi and
Raid vocalist Steve Lovett created hardline philosophy and pioneered its musical movement alongside the English band Statement. Although hardline was overtly a political, anarchist school of thought rather than a hardcore subculture, hardline activists began to push their views specifically towards those in the mid to late 1980s straight edge scene due to the scene's wider appeal. The movement quickly gained popularity in Memphis and Indianapolis, before then spreading to Salt Lake City and Syracuse.
1990s were one of the pioneers of
metalcore in the early 1990s. The early 1990s saw the pioneering of metalcore. One of the earliest metalcore scenes was that of
Cleveland,
Ohio, fronted by
Integrity and
Ringworm. Integrity's debut album
Those Who Fear Tomorrow (1991) merged hardcore with apocalyptic lyrics and metal's guitar solos and chugging riffs to create one of the primeval albums in the genre.
Revolver magazine writer Elis Enis stated that the album "influenced practically every breakdown that's been recorded since". Philadelphia's
Starkweather and New Jersey's
Rorschach were also early bands in the genre. In 1993,
Earth Crisis released "Firestorm", one of the most influential songs in the genre. which ultimately popularised the militant
vegan straight edge ethic and chug riffs. Soon after, the sound spread to Boston with
Overcast and
Converge and New York City with
All Out War and
Merauder. During this era in mainstream music, punk rock became a success in 1994 with popular bands like
Green Day,
the Offspring, and
Rancid. While typically playing
pop punk, Green Day's 1997 album
Nimrod contained two songs ("Platypus [I Hate You]" and "Take Back") that were described as hardcore; meanwhile, Rancid would record a hardcore album with 2000's
Rancid. The same year, punk became popular again in 1994,
Sick of It All released the major label album
Scratch the Surface. According to lead singer
Lou Koller, people thought that they would go from a hardcore band to sounding like Green Day, so they intentionally made an album heavier than anything they'd done before. The album became a surprise success, with the single "Step Down" becoming a staple on
MTV, thanks to a tongue-in-cheek music video featuring a roving reporter "exposing" the world of hardcore, and showing how to do various hardcore dance moves. The decade also saw a rise in pop-punk bands like
New Found Glory and
Saves the Day, which garnered attention from fans of hardcore due to band member connections to the contemporary hardcore scene. As a reaction against the dominance of metal-influenced hardcore amongst straight edge bands, around 1996, a revival of the sound of the youth crew bands began. Bands including
In My Eyes,
Bane,
Ten Yard Fight and Floorpunch, used the key aspects of late 1980s bands such as the gang vocals, high tempos and lyrical themes of straight edge, unity and vegetarianism. Additionally, at this time, Youth of Today's
Ray Cappo formed
Better Than a Thousand with Ken Olden and Graham Land of early 1990s straight edge band
Battery, creating a sound, too, harkening back to this era. Further bands meshed straight edge with additional causes, such as
Christian hardcore bands
Call to Preserve,
the Red Baron,
xLooking Forwardx,
Jewish band
Sons of Abraham,
queercore band
Limp Wrist,
right-wing anti-immigrant band One Life Crew, and
anti-capitalism bands
Manliftingbanner and
Refused. In the late 1990s, a number of movements that attempted to rebel against the hypermasculinity that hardcore had come to embrace. One of these was
fashioncore, which originated from
Orange County, California metalcore bands, particularly
Eighteen Visions. The movement placed emphasis on the fashion style of the musicians and saw many in hardcore begin to wear skinny jeans, collared shirts and white belts and adopting dyed, straightened and swooping fringed hairstyles.
Sass music began with this same intention, doing so by incorporating elements such as homoerotic lyrics, lisped vocals, dance parts and sometimes synths. As the 1990s drew to a close, a wave of metalcore bands began incorporating elements of
melodic death metal into their sound. This formed an early version of what would become the
melodic metalcore genre, with
Shadows Fall's
Somber Eyes to the Sky (1997), Undying's
This Day All Gods Die (1999),
Darkest Hour's
The Prophecy Fulfilled (1999),
Unearth's
Above the Fall of Man (1999),
Prayer for Cleansing's
Rain in Endless Fall (1999) being some of the style's earliest releases.
CMJ writer Anthony Delia also credited Florida's
Poison the Well and their first two releases
The Opposite of December... A Season of Separation (1999) and
Tear from the Red (2002) as "design[ing] the template for most of" the melodic metalcore bands to come.
2000s show By 1999 and 2000, the youth crew revival was in decline, with Ten Yard Fight, In My Eyes and Floorpunch all disbanding. As a reaction against the homogeneity and simplicity that scene had developed, Ten Yard Fight guitarist Tim Cossar and the band's roadie
Wesley Eisold formed
American Nightmare. Although still musically rooted in the youth crew revival, the band's negative, poetic lyrics of self-loathing were inspired by groups like
the Smiths. American Nightmare's influence was apparent promptly in their home of Boston, A reaction against this movement also took place, which began with Mental, who were quickly followed by
Have Heart. Have Heart's success led to the rise in popularity of other
positive hardcore groups like
Champion,
Verse and
Sinking Ships, and the rise in prominence of
Bridge 9 Records. In an
AllMusic review, Greg Prato wrote about the label's band
Energy that "While you wouldn't go quite as far as calling Energy "a hardcore
boy band," the group's leanings toward the mainstream are undeniable throughout
Invasions of the Mind. Friends Stand United (FSU) formed in Boston in the 1980s in an attempt to expel
neo-Nazis from the scene. By the early 2000s, there were FSU chapters in Philadelphia, Chicago, Arizona, Los Angeles, Seattle,
upstate New York and New Jersey, and they were considered to have about 200 members. The
Federal Bureau of Investigation eventually classified FSU as a street gang, which used violent methods and repeatedly assault people at hardcore shows and on Boston streets. In conjunction with the gang activities, James eventually did time in jail for extortion. With the increased popularity of punk rock in the mid-1990s and the 2000s, additional hardcore bands signed with major record labels. In 2001, New York's
H2O released the album
Go on
MCA, but it failed at bringing the band big success, and fell flat with longtime fans. In 2002,
AFI signed to
DreamWorks Records but changed their sound considerably for its successful major label debut
Sing the Sorrow. Chicago's
Rise Against were signed by
Geffen Records, and three of its releases on the label were certified platinum by the
RIAA. Like AFI, Rise Against gradually removed elements of hardcore from their music, culminating with 2008's
Appeal to Reason, which lacked the intensity found in their earlier albums. United Kingdom band
Gallows were signed to
Warner Bros. Records for £1 million. Their major label debut
Grey Britain was more aggressive than their previous material, and the band was subsequently dropped from the label. The success of the band led to other British hardcore acts of the time gain notability like
the Ghost of a Thousand and
Heights. Los Angeles band
the Bronx briefly appeared on
Island Def Jam Music Group for the release of their
2006 self-titled album, which was named one of the top 40 albums of the year by
Spin magazine. They appeared in the
Darby Crash biopic What We Do Is Secret, playing members of Black Flag. In 2007,
Toronto's
Fucked Up appeared on
MTV Live Canada, where they were introduced as "Effed Up". During the performance of its song "Baiting the Public", the majority of the audience was
moshing, which caused $2000 in damages to the set.
Fucked Up went on to win the
2009 Polaris Music Prize for the album
The Chemistry of Common Life. Australian hardcore also took off during this time with bands like
Miles Away,
Break Even,
50 Lions (formed in 2005), and
Iron Mind (formed in 2006). The genre was played on the national
Triple J network on the
short.fast.loud program. Australian labels that released hardcore music include
Broken Hive Records,
Resist Records and
UNFD Records.
2010s With many bands breaking up in the late 2000s, accompanied by a general sense of sonic homogeny in the hardcore genre, the 2010s became a decade of experimentation and fusion in hardcore music that was fueled by access to streaming. Drawing from and collaborating with elements of other eras and genres, hardcore grew as music styles intersected. For instance, bands like
Trash Talk began collaborating with artists like
Tyler, the Creator and his hip-hop collective
Odd Future. Meanwhile, bands like
Fury,
Fiddlehead, and Give garnered a great deal of attention on an underground level for their lyricism and diverse sounds. Other prominent bands, like
Title Fight and
Basement brought elements of
shoegaze and '90s
noise rock into the hardcore genre.
Trapped Under Ice were one of the most prominent bands in hardcore in the early 2010s. The band's second album
Big Kiss Goodnight (2011) changing the sonic landscape of hardcore at the time, with
Stereogum writer Tom Breiham stating in a 2023 article that "it's been years since we've gotten a new Trapped Under Ice song, but that band's influence looms large over the entire hardcore landscape today." However, in 2013, the band suddenly disbanded, disheartened by the amount of interest in them by the music industry. In the meantime, its members focused on their other projects
Angel Dust,
Diamond Youth,
Down to Nothing and
Turnstile. In the early to mid-2010s, a number of British hardcore punk bands began being represented as members of a new musical movement dubbed the
New Wave of British Hardcore, a term coined by Adam Malik from the Essence Records.
Violent Reaction,
Big Cheese,
Higher Power, Perspex Flesh, Mob Rules,
the Flex and Blind Authority. Some bands such as Rapture, Violent Reaction are straight edge. During this time, Muslim hardcore bands have emerged in the U.S., Canada, Pakistan, and Indonesia. The development of Muslim hardcore has been traced to the impact of a 2010 film
Taqwacore, a documentary about the Muslim hardcore scene. Bands include
the Kominas from Boston, the all-girl
Secret Trial Five from Toronto,
Al Thawra (The Power) from Chicago "and even a few bands out in Pakistan and Indonesia." Partly due to developments in digital communications, there was a rise in interaction between hardcore scenes in different places and subgenres, particularly in Europe. In September 2017,
Bandcamp Daily wrote that
Fluff Fest, which has been held in the Czech Republic since 2000 and features an international lineup of independent bands ranging in style from
crust punk to
screamo, "has established itself as the main DIY hardcore punk event in Europe". During the decade, many hardcore bands also had considerable chart recognition. Turnstile signed to
Roadrunner Records in 2017 and released their sophomore album
Time & Space in 2018, which reached number one on the
Billboard Heatseekers chart.
Gouge Away, formed in 2012 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, saw their record
Burnt Sugar peak at 46 on Billboard Independent Albums.
Code Orange, who formed in Pittsburgh in 2008, their 2014 sophomore album
I Am King reached number 96 on the
Billboard 200, and its follow up, 2017's
Forever peaked and number 62. Kentucky hardcore band
Knocked Loose formed in 2013 and released their debut album
Laugh Tracks in 2016, which peaked at number 163 on the Billboard 200. Its follow-up
A Different Shade of Blue was released in 2019 and peaked at number 26. Many of these bands were a part of wave of bands gaining recognition for harkening back to the metallic hardcore sound of bands from the 1990s, which included
Vein.fm, Code Orange, Knocked Loose,
Varials,
Jesus Piece,
Counterparts and
Kublai Khan. Hardcore in the late 2010s saw a significant growth of the scene to involve bands taking influence from styles generally disassociated with it, such as
industrial,
heavy metal,
post-punk and
nu metal. Around this time, mainstream rappers began to associate themselves with the hardcore scene.
Playboi Carti included a performance from a hardcore show as the front cover for his 2018 album
Die Lit,
Denzel Curry collaborated with Bad Brains and Fucked Up in 2019 Rappers
Wicca Phase Springs Eternal and
Ghostemane even began playing music by performing in hardcore bands. In 2019, the highly influential 2000s Boston hardcore band
Have Heart reunited for performances in four different locations after a ten-year breakup. One of these performances was outside the
Worcester Palladium in
Massachusetts, which drew around 10,000 attendees, making it the largest standalone hardcore show in history.
2020s '' (2020) achieved significant chart success and universal critic acclaim. The 2020
COVID-19 pandemic made the prospect of playing live music difficult. This brought about a heavy digital shift in independent music, where many bands began performing livestream shows for fans until physical shows could occur. With
social distancing limiting the availability of physical interactions, the hardcore community relied on social media activity, podcasting, zines, and video content to stay connected virtually. During this period, a number of hardcore releases gained attention from the media and online that surpassed the genre's usual scope, namely Code Orange's
Underneath (2020), Higher Power's
27 Miles Underwater (2021) and Turnstile's
Glow On (2021).
Underneath topped the
UK Rock & Metal Albums, reached number two on the US Top Tastemaker Albums chart, and received universal critical acclaim. Higher Power were hailed by
Metal Hammer as "the band redefining hardcore for a new generation", and voted the most likely UK band to break into the mainstream in a
Revolver fan poll. However,
Glow On triggered an international explosion in popularity of the genre, and allowed for the subsequent success of bands including
Zulu,
High Vis and
Speed.
Glow On also received universal critical acclaim, peaked at number two on the UK Rock & Metal Albums, and number thirty on the mainline
Billboard 200 chart. A podcast published the
New York Times credited a number of viral videos of live performances by hardcore bands as contributing to the popularity, including
Sunami's live debut in San Jose on October 26, 2019,
Hate5six's July 03, 2021 video of Mindforce performing at Underground Arts in Philadelphia and Turnstile's performance in Oxnard on August 29, 2021. The
Financial Times named London's
Chubby and the Gang and Detroit's
the Armed as two of the most commercially successful groups of this wave. By 2023, the most prominent style in hardcore was its fusion with
alternative rock, fronted by Turnstile,
Angel Dust, Scowl and Higher Power. In a 2023 episode his podcast
Violent Treatment, former
Revolver editor Eli Enis called this style "pop-hardcore".
BrooklynVegan editor Andrew Sacher traced its popularity as slowly growing since around 2008 with the release of Cold World's
Dedicated to Babies Who Came Feet First and
Fucked Up's
The Chemistry of Common Life and through 2010s releases by Trapped Under Ice,
Title Fight and Trash Talk. Of the style, Militarie Gun vocalist Ian Shelton said it was reviving "the original intent of hardcore... instead of this formulaic thing” citing the Minutemen, Bad Brains, and Hüsker Dü as its forefathers. As lockdowns began to ease, many of the bands in this scene began to put on "guerilla shows", such as one that took place on June 19, 2021, in San Jose featuring Sunami, Gulch, Drain, Scowl,
Xibalba and Maya Over Eyes, which had an attendance of around 2,000. Gulch performed their final live performance at Sound and Fury Festival on July 31, 2022, at the peak of their popularity. ==Influence==